"Thank you for putting it in that way to me," said Lilias. She went up to Ermengarde and kissed her. "What have you got to wear?" she asked. "I know mother would like such young girls as we are to be dressed very simply. I shall just put on a white muslin, a white silk sash round my waist."
"Oh, I have a white dress, too," said Ermengarde, in a careless tone. "I am sure I shall manage very well."
Her dark eyes grew brighter and brighter as she spoke.
"I must not stay to chat with you, Ermie," said Lilias, looking at her friend with admiration. "Mother is so afraid you will miss your maid, you shall have as much of Petite's time as ever I can possibly spare."
"Who is Petite?" asked Ermengarde.
"Oh, she's my dear little maid. We brought her over from France last year. She was never out anywhere before, and I'm so fond of her. Her name is Lucile Marat, but I call her Petite, because she is on a small scale, and so neat in every way. It was she who unpacked your things. I'll send her to you in a minute."
Lilias ran out of the room, and Ermengarde, closing the door, opened a long drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe, and taking out her white chiffon dress, viewed it with great complacency. This dress had been given to Ermengarde by Aunt Elizabeth; she had brought it from Paris, intending to wear it at a county ball herself, but finding it too juvenile, she had handed it on to her niece. The local dressmaker had cut it down to fit Ermengarde, and ever since she possessed it, Ermie had sighed and longed for the occasion when she might don the lovely robe.
The dress was in truth an exquisite one; it was delicately spangled with what looked like dewdrops, and had a great deal of rich soft silk introduced here and there, but if it was too young for Aunt Elizabeth, it was a great deal too old for Ermie. It's voluminous and graceful pillows of white were not suited to her slim little figure. It was a grown girl's dress, and Ermie was only a child.
Still the occasion, the longed-for, the sighed-for occasion, when she might dress herself in Aunt Elizabeth's white chiffon, had arrived.
Ermie pulled the dress out of the drawer, shook out its folds, and regarded it with rapture.